The strictness appears to be reassuring, at least from the outside. Most of the APIs put Apple in the middle of any interaction so any ambiguity becomes the developers fault.
Android is great because apps can talk to each other with intents. Your app sends the "I want to take a photo" Intent and default photo app will handle it and return you the photo data. Simple right? Except you're talking to third party code and the request and response format is so flexible its very hard to check that you (or the other app) have implemented everything correctly. Did you specify the front camera or the back camera? What does no specification mean?
"Burden of freedom"... I'd say it's just another consequence of the fact that APIs are user interfaces, and require the same level of attention from designers.
Android is great because apps can talk to each other with intents. Your app sends the "I want to take a photo" Intent and default photo app will handle it and return you the photo data. Simple right? Except you're talking to third party code and the request and response format is so flexible its very hard to check that you (or the other app) have implemented everything correctly. Did you specify the front camera or the back camera? What does no specification mean?
Its the burden of freedom.